Jens Damm
Cybercommunities (unpublished entry for the Handbook on the
Chinese Internet, Berkshire)
Abstract: Cybercommunities have the potential to influence the broad societal, political, and
cultural transformations that in recent decades have shaped China toward becoming a
postmodern society. They can provide means of empowerment of and communication among
civic and nationalist communities, marginalized groups, and the Chinese diaspora, and they
could help narrow the socioeconomic and digital divide within China.
In 2011 one-third of China’s population is online, and with the ongoing popularity of bulletin
board systems (BBSs), cybercommunities have become one of the dominant features of China’s
Internet. These communities exist in the fields of civic engagement and nationalist endeavors;
marginalized groups are present as well as users enjoying leisure and entertainment activities.
Links to Chinese-speaking regions worldwide transcend national boundaries.
By the end of 2010 the number of Internet users in China had reached 457 million with
an Internet penetration rate of 34.3 percent (CNNIC 2011, 5), and all the major portals, search
engines, university websites, and many privately owned websites were offering BBSs and other
Internet forums for a virtually endless number of cybercommunities. Users sharing similar
interests ranging from the private sphere, such as dating and cars, to nationalist discussions, have
been meeting in the virtual world and forming new and sometimes long-lasting relationships,
thus defying the physical borders of the “real” world. While other applications of the Internet,
such as the social networks, are gaining importance, BBSs and Internet forums remain much
more popular in China than elsewhere (CNNIC 2010, 3).
The article explores the potential of cybercommunities in China and beyond, taking into
account Western and Chinese sources, and provides an introduction to the particular applications
for community-building that are popular in China. It offers several examples of
cybercommunities that have developed in the areas of civic engagement, commerce and trade,
nationalism, and cultural interests, and highlights as well the broad spectrum of interests they
represent. Finally, it examines what the boundaries of these communities will be, focusing
particularly on transregional and transnational elements involving the People’s Republic of
China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the global Chinese diaspora.
Cybercommunities and China’s Transformation
Experts in the field often debate whether cybercommunities embody the potential to change
China’s political and social structures. Can they narrow the socioeconomic and digital divide
between the developed urban areas and the coastal areas to help empower marginalized groups?
Or do these cybercommunities reflect only the current situation in China, where the emergence
of narrow interest groups precludes active social and political engagement in a postmodern
society. Another question, therefore, is whether the sheer variety of different cybercommunities
is congruent with the broad societal, political, and cultural transformations that have shaped
China toward becoming a postmodern society. [The term “postmodern” is being used here as
defined by Arif Dirlik and Xudong Zhang (1997, 3): “[T]he coexistence of the precapitalist, the
capitalist, and the postsocialist economic, political, and social forms represents a significant
departure from the assumptions of a Chinese modernity, embodied above all in the socialist
revolutionary project.” A further reference is to the overcoming of societal expectations with
regard to clear-cut class and gender roles, which has led to the blurring of former distinctions
such that individuals are able to make more deliberate choices in what they want to be and how
they want to behave. This does not deny that ongoing enormous gaps in income and development
have resulted in extremely uneven growth in China; this is mirrored in the so-called digital
divide, which ranges from an Internet penetration rate of 15 percent in the southwestern province
of Guizhou to 65 percent in the capital, Beijing (CNNIC 2010, 105).
It cannot be disputed that computer-mediated communication (CMC) has enabled new
worldwide communities to form in cyberspace, which, at least for the participants, represents real
communities (Watson 1997). “Cybercommunities” can be broadly defined as online virtual
networks where social interactions take place between participants who share common ideas,
interests, and hobbies so that a sense of community and belonging can develop. These online
communities offer opportunities for a wide range of activities, from individual bonding
(friendship, romance, dating, hobbies, and professional networking) to civic engagement
(environmentalism, calls to political action). Ethnic and nationalist groups have formed virtual
communities, as have fantasy and celebrity fan groups (Fernback 1999, 203).
Most authors agree that a certain level of commitment on the part of the cybercommunity
participants is necessary. Howard Rheingold (1993, 5) defined cybercommunities as “social
aggregations that emerge . . . when enough people carry on those public discussions long
enough, with sufficient human feeling, to form webs of personal relation in cyberspace.”
Traditional communities are linked to certain places, whereas cybercommunities easily cross
geographical, territorial, and national boundaries. More important than “cyber” is the term
“community,” as described by Steve Jones (1998, 3): “[C]rucial to the rhetoric surrounding of
the Internet . . . is the promise of a renewed sense of community and, in many instances, new
types and formations of community.”
In these cybercommunities it is possible, but not necessary, to obtain a particular identity
within a community that is close to or identical to one’s actual identity in the real world, or to
establish a completely new identity with regard to gender, age, ethnicity, and interests. The first
online communities emerged in the Usenet (the oldest computer network communications
system, which has been in widespread use since 1980) and later in BBSs and various related
Internet forums. These are still very popular in China, but new forms of social networks have
now come into existence, such as Facebook and its Chinese counterparts, which offer more
sophisticated applications for building cybercommunities.
In Chinese, the term used for “community” is usually shequ or shequn (the latter being
used more often in Taiwan); for specific reference to CMC communities, terms in use include
wangluo, meaning “net” or “cyber” (in Taiwan: wanglu) and xuni, that is, “virtual,” and zaixian,
meaning “online.” In the context of the social interactions and the perception of a
cybercommunity as a symbolic form of community, the term wangluo shequ is probably the
most useful and the most often employed. Baike Baidu, the Chinese equivalent of Wikipedia,
defines a cybercommunity as an “online communications space, such as BBS/forums, Tieba
(also known as “Baidu Paste Bar,” a Chinese communication platform provided by Baidu, the
largest search machine in China), personal web space, dating, online chat, including value-added
wireless services, focusing on participants with a common interest” (Wangluo shequ 2010).
In the Chinese world, the term xuni shequ (“virtual community”) places greater emphasis
on its opposition to the “real” world and on anonymity, and also on the possibility of creating
new virtual worlds, such as MUD (Multi-User Dungeon), computer role-play games set in a
fantasy world, and other gaming applications. The Chinese cybercommunities described here
exist between the real and virtual worlds; for example, in the cybercommunity of the Chinese
diaspora the boundaries between the real world and newly created online spaces are vague and
the cybercommunity is more or less a borderless extension of existing networks.
Building Cybercommunities in China
Applications used to build cybercommunities in China differ from those used in the West in
several ways. First, China’s Internet policy, often referred to as the “Great Firewall,” renders the
use of Usenet, Facebook, and MySpace difficult and sometimes impossible inside the country.
As a result, the Chinese versions of Facebook, such as the Renren Network (www.renren.com,
formerly known as the Xiaonei Network, www.xiaonei.com), which is popular among college
students, and Kaixin001 (www.kaixin001.com) are more popular in the People’s Republic of
China (PRC), than, for example, in Hong Kong and in Taiwan. Second, cultural differences
between the West, Japan, Korea, and China have made certain applications and search engines
more popular in the West than in East Asia; although they are often more censored than
international versions, East Asian users prefer the local versions. [AU5: The reviewing editor
writes that this point requires elaboration or perhaps prominent examples could be
included, and also notes that Baidu is censored Third, there might be a nationalist bias against
Western products, particularly within the Chinese nationalist groups. Finally, in China as
elsewhere, applications are changing rapidly from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0, and different
communities employ different applications that have their own characteristics, benefits, and
drawbacks with regard to building and maintaining cybercommunities. Despite the fast-changing
technology, however, the various cybercommunities and their user loyalty remain the same;
cybercommunities, in particular, are less technology-determined than are other Internet features.
In spite of the existence of specific Web 2.0 applications, BBSs remain in vogue on
China’s Internet and are especially used for creating cybercommunities. Most Chinese web
portals offer various forms of BBSs or the specific entity Baidu, called Tieba (tieba.baidu.com).
These BBSs and forums are more important than social networks, although maintaining
anonymity and coping with the sometimes-enforced name registration can pose problems for
these kinds of communities, particularly when they are involved with politically sensitive issues.
They do, however, offer more security than the new social network applications such as the
Renren Network and Kaixin001. While the influence of blogs on the development of China’s
society and political system is frequently debated, the continuing influence of BBSs should not
be underestimated and deserves equal consideration. Internet companies, search engines,
universities, city governments, and even individuals have set up BBSs on their websites and
these offer ample space for community building.
The first BBSs were set up at universities; the first was Shui Mu Tsinghua at the
prestigious Tsinghua University in Beijing and others soon followed, such as Tianya and the
Strong Nation Forum, both offered by the People’s Daily Online. According to Yong Hu (2010),
these BBSs differ in various respects: “Tianya, MOP, KDnet, Tiexue and other sites work on a
‘forum + editor’ model, while the Strong Nation Forum, Sina Forum, Sohu Forum, Phoenix
Forum, Baidu Post and other such sites are important components of larger news forums.” The
major web portals and search engines, such as Baidu (www.baidu.com), QQ (www.qq.com),
Sina (www.sina.com.cn), Netease (www.163.com), Taobao (www.taobao.com), and Sohu
(www.sohu.com), have set up BBSs on their sites. QQ, an instant messaging tool that is second
only to MSN in China, has gradually evolved into a large portal that contains, in addition to
many other applications, one of the largest instant-message–based BBS forums. The web portal
Netease runs an alumnicentric BBS community, and the e-business site Taobao is well known
for its commercial and business-oriented BBSs (Jin 2008, 11). MOP (www.mop.com), with its
focus on entertainment, and Tianya (www.tianya.cn), with its focus on culture and social matters,
are important BBSs with huge user-generated forums that account for about half of the BBS
traffic in China. In addition to the all-embracing BBSs of the major portals, many smaller and
more topic-oriented BBSs have survived and are frequently visited.
The specific mode of a BBS leads to community-building; the many-to-many
communication capability coupled with the fact that users—unlike bloggers—cannot delete other
users’ comments make BBSs highly interactive (Jin 2008, 30). A greater proportion of the
content of China’s BBSs is related to leisure activities, such as dating, recreation, and
entertainment than to public affairs or political issues. This encourages the creation of
specialized cybercommunities that, although they bring together people with the same interests,
are unlikely to create a public sphere where the exchange and discussion of different opinions is
a precondition. The Chinese BBS sphere has probably not accomplished the critical functions of
the Habermasian public sphere.
According to Jürgen Habermas, this “public sphere” refers to “a realm of our social life in
which something approaching public opinion can be formed. Access is guaranteed to all citizens.
… Citizens behave as a public body when they confer in an unrestricted fashion – that is, with
the guarantee of freedom of assembly and association and the freedom to express and publish
their opinions – about matter of general interest” (Habermas 2001, 102). In the Chinese BBS
sphere, however, the “homogenous space of embodied subjects in symmetrical relations” (Poster
2001, 265) is unlikely to occur because BBS moderators exercise their right to regulate the
information on BBS sites, and the hierarchical structure that gives preference to “opinion
leaders” on BBSs overshadows the voices of the normal BBS participants (Jin 2008, 36).
Variety of Cybercommunities
To obtain a clearer picture of the various forms of cybercommunities in China and also to
evaluate their potential influence on societal developments, a brief overview of groups of
cybercommunities is now provided to explain the kinds of cyber communities that exist, the
ways in which they have come into being and the participants who are involved in these
communities. Furthermore, the specific characteristics of the different kinds of
cybercommunities are spelled out and examined in order to investigate whether these differ from
cybercommunities outside China. General features are explained to determine whether they are
limited to a certain group or geographical region, whether these communities are more outwardoriented
towards a general public or more inward-oriented towards the participants, and whether
they possess transnational elements. This leads on to an analysis of the social, cultural, political
and economic implications of the respective communities. There is a particular focus on the
extent to which the geographical limitations of the PRC play a role, on the ways that these cyber
communities affect relations with the Chinese diasporas worldwide (particularly in Southeast
Asia, Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand) and on their influence on relations between the PRC
proper, Hong Kong/Macao and Taiwan. The literature of cybercommunities classifies the
following groups, although many of these overlap and various other communities have recently
come into existence. These cybercommunities could be further divided according to whether
they are civic communities or are in the public sphere (political action, environmental protection,
web-based NGOs), or are entertainment, relaxation communities, and private communities (also
leisure, games, and dating) (G. Yang 2003, 2009).
Nationalist Cybercommunities
Benedict Anderson’s 1983 concept of “imagined communities” makes cybercommunities
suitable for nationalist communications (Fernback 1999, 211). The Internet offers Chinese
nationalists, the Han ethnocentrists, the Uygur (Uighur) separatists, the Taiwanese independence
activists, and similar groups the opportunity to create ideal forums for pursuing nationalist ideas
beyond geographical limitations and boundaries; this activity has also helped to revitalize
nationalist feelings in the Chinese diaspora. Recent emigrants from the PRC find each other in
cyberspace, thus linking the new diaspora and the homeland in a hitherto unknown intimacy
(Chan 2006).
The nationalist cybercommunity includes a large number of Chinese students studying
abroad who have gained sufficient confidence to challenge the Western perception of China. The
Internet serves as a tool to bring together activists living in China and activists living abroad to
attack, in particular, American and Japanese media descriptions of China that they regard as
misrepresentations. In 2007, for example, Chinese netizens launched a website named Anti-CNN
(www.anti-cnn.com) that listed alleged distortions or misrepresentations that appear in the
Western media. These new nationalist communities have also employed BBSs, forums, and the
newer Web 2.0 social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace, and they have gravitated
toward certain blogs. Xu Wu, in “Chinese Cyber Nationalism: Evolution, Characteristics, and
Implications” (2007, 23), showed that Internet technology has enabled the more formalized,
advanced, and well-organized activists to build up power communities to carry this nationalism
back to China. Furthermore, the Chinese government is in constant negotiation with these online
activists, often trying to exert a calming influence when their nationalist policies show signs of
endangering the foreign policy objectives of the PRC. Careful monitoring takes place in the
community of the People’s Daily’s Strong Nation Forum (Qianguo luntan, bbs.people.com.cn).
Although it allows many discussions, it is probably one of the most highly controlled forums in
China.
The essentialist stance of this nationalist community has been mentioned in connection
with the anti-Chinese riots in Indonesia in 1998, which were probably the first of a handful of
events that led to a drastic increase in Chinese cybernationalism. The riots against ethnic Chinese
in Indonesia during the Asian crisis led to the formation of a vitriolic community of Chinese
students in the United States, and this has also spread to the Chinese diaspora in Southeast Asia
where Internet usage has just started to gain strength. Popular websites, such as the newly
established World Huaren Federation (www.huaren.org), have employed essentialist approaches
that do not acknowledge the various hybrid identities of Indonesians of Chinese descent in the
simplistic discussions found online, which could be counterproductive for the rights of
Indonesians of Chinese descent (Suryadinata 2007). This case, as Aihwa Ong (2003) pointed out,
demonstrates the potential shallowness and one-sidedness of cybercommunities. Without taking
any personal risks, Chinese nationalists from all over the world were able to criticize the
Indonesian government in Indonesia, but the essentialized perception of “Chineseness” and even
racist undertones also deepened the rifts within Indonesian society, where many Indonesians of
Chinese descent suddenly began to be called Chinese again.
Another example can be drawn from the PRC itself: the protest against Japan’s 2004 bid
for permanent membership in the UN Security Council, which drew fierce online protests from
the Chinese diaspora (for example, in Singapore) and from PRC Chinese, because both groups,
with their memories of the atrocities of World War II, were hostile toward Japan. The subsequent
political action extended the virtual space and led, in 2005, to huge street gatherings all over
China that were tolerated (to some extent) by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) (Tai 2006,
255–292).
Uygur (Uighur) leaders, often intellectuals and activists residing outside the Xinjiang
Uygur Autonomous Region, have used the Internet to shape a borderless national identity for the
Uygurs. This has probably also led to increased tension in the region and has hindered the
reconsolidation of the various ethnic groups residing there (Petersen 2006). Uygur “cyberseparatism”
together with exotic representations of the Uygur by the PRC has resulted in the
simultaneous construction of a homogeneous, monolithic Han majority in conflict with an
essentialized group of Uygurs (Gladney 2004). Although conflict here is certainly not a new
phenomenon, the use of the Internet by nationalists on both sides seems to have brought the
unbridgeable differences between the Uygurs and the Han, in terms of race, religion, language
and culture, into even sharper relief. [AU12: Please add a bit of historical context to this
paragraph for the general reader, most especially because the ethnic minority and majority
situation has existed long before the Internet.]
The Taiwanese independence network also employs the Internet, but this is an extension
of a much older network existing between activist groups in Japan and the United States which
can be traced back to the 1950s. Because the promotion of Taiwanese independence has been
more or less legally tolerated in Taiwan since the late 1980s, the Internet has not played such an
important role in this regard; nevertheless, various websites and groups are active and promote
specific Taiwanese communities (Chung 2003).
Other nationalist groups within China, such as the Muslim groups in Xinjiang fighting for
an independent East Turkestan, and the Taiwanese impendence activists arguing online against
the claims of the CCP and the Chinese nationalists that Taiwan is a part of China, show that
cybercommunities tend to be “bonding” groups rather than “bridging” groups—a phenomenon
that has been described by Robert Putnam (2002) [AU14: Need a reference for this and please
insert author’s first name here.] and researched by Pippa Norris (2004). In this context, the
term “bridging groups” refers to groups that bring together members of disparate communities
and enable communication (approximating Habermas’s public sphere), while “bonding groups”
reinforce close-knit networks of people sharing similar backgrounds and beliefs (Norris 2004,
31). More recently, nationalists have shown an increasing tendency to use blogs, media-sharing
platforms, and personal communication tools, including social network applications (Nyiri,
Zhang, and Varrall 2010).
Cybercommunities of Marginalized Groups
Although nationalist cybercommunities often spontaneously form and expand rapidly in response
to certain events, such as the Japanese bid for UN Security Council membership and the
bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade in 1999, cybercommunities composed of
marginalized groups tend to be longer-lasting and often develop a sense of Gemeinschaft
(Ferdinand Tönnies’s concept of “community”). In such communities the participants are
oriented toward the group as least as much as toward their own self interest, and a “unity of will”
can be observed (Tönnies 2001, 22).
With regard to sexual minorities such as lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgendered
people (collectively, LGBT), the Internet has led to shared communities in many places all over
the world (Ho 2010, 13). In China especially, where sexual minorities are still shunned by the
official media and society, LGBT cybercommunities are regarded as providing opportunities for
empowerment (Martin 2009). Unlike the nationalist cybercommunities, the LGBT online
communities are very localized and highly influenced by sociocultural specifics (Ho 2010, 108–
109); cross-border communities of sexual minority groups are seldom found. For example, the
Taiwanese “same-sex” online spaces are very separate from the those of the Chinese; in Taiwan,
universities established sexual minority cybercommunities with BBSs called MOTTS (“member
of the same sex”) as early as 1994 (Damm 2001; Martin 2009; C.-C. Yang 2000).
Research on the use of the Internet by women in China shows that cyberspace serves as a
kind of social capital and enables women to forge cybersocial networks and communities to
facilitate their activities and needs (Kuah-Pierce 2008, 11). But Khun Eng Kuah-Pierce (2008,
15–16) goes on to observe that members of cybercommunities seldom develop offline
relationships, with the exception of dating and some support groups that have reported personal
contacts at a later stage. Other marginalized groups include Chinese migrants and emigrants who
have established networks between their new locations and their places of origin. Through the
use of Internet cafés, families are connected with the migrants working in the more prosperous
urban and Western regions (Law and Chu 2008; Peng 2008).
Rural populations still lag in general economic development and largely lack personal
computers, information and communications technology (ICT) skills, and Internet infrastructure.
This has created an enormous digital divide that is only slowly being narrowed through various
government-sponsored efforts to improve the infrastructure, and the Internet is still only
beginning to offer opportunities to build up rural cybercommunities. The result is hierarchical
use of ICT in rural regions (Zhao 2008, 137–141); only through state and individual initiatives
can an ICT infrastructure be developed to enable the establishment of rural cybercommunities.
These rural groups, which Jack Linchuan Qiu (2009) describes as the “information have-less,”
are heterogeneous in terms of gender, regional origin, and ethnicity and have developed new
methods to access the Internet, but financial restrictions and their often unstable living conditions
still obstruct the development of a truly active cybercommunity. Qiu argues that these groups are
highly vulnerable to commercial exploitation and state control (Qiu 2009).
Ethnic groups are an interesting subset in the cybercommunity. One well-researched
group is the Hakka, a subethnic Chinese group found in southern China (for example, in
Guangdong) and also in Southeast Asia and in Taiwan. Unlike the nationalist discourses, which
tend toward essentialism, the global Hakka community uses more Web 2.0 applications such as
blogs, YouTube, and forums, and shows a high degree of hybridization. Online, the Hakka ethnic
identity is continuously rearticulated and the Hakka cultural, linguistic, and historic heritage is
experienced via the new technologies (Damm 2008).
An interesting case was researched by Weidong Zhang (2002), who observed the
communications on a BBS of a Manchurian website to gain a clearer picture of how the identity
of “Manchuness” has been articulated via Internet communication, and to what degree the
Internet helped to revoke the identity of an ethnic group which today has largely been
assimilated with the dominant Han Chinese. The specific Manchu language is almost extinct, and
only small groups of mostly elderly people in very remote and rural areas of northeastern China
are able to communicate in Manchu (Zhang 2002).
Leisure and Entertainment
The cybercommunities connected with leisure and entertainment are too numerous to count.
Some of those found in the various leisure, hobby, and finance sections of typical BBSs on the
larger web portals focus on culture and art, lifestyle (film gossip, pop stars, love and emotion,
and night life), health, women, cars, real estate, finance, and the stock market (Damm 2007, 287–
288). These communities are topic-oriented, but various BBSs also offer localized
cybercommunities; Sohu, for example, lists numerous BBS topics specifically for Beijing but
lists fewer BBSs for provinces with a lower Internet penetration, such as Guangxi.
A very specific transnational cybercommunity is found in the online fan clubs, which
often focus on celebrities from outside the PRC proper, in places such as Hong Kong, Taiwan,
Japan, and South Korea. For example, a transnational cybercommunity focused on Kimura
Takuya, a highly popular Japanese singer and actor, has spread over fourteen countries, where
participants define their gender, cultural, global, and hybrid identities through their mutual
interaction; this has led to a complex process of virtual crosscultural identity formation (DarlingWolf
2004). In various forums, soap operas and actors are discussed among the fans of this
entertainment genre. According to Yuni Koyun Ko (2009), the shared affinity (widespread, at
present) of many female participants with Korean stars or TV dramas develops into “a subject of
their ‘play’ in the form of cyber-space communication.” Cultural and literary exchanges also take
place on blogs and BBSs, and, as shown by Jia Liu (2010), cybercommunities are starting to play
an increasingly significant role in the reception of popular novels.
Commerce
E-business– and e-commerce–related cybercommunities have expanded exponentially over
recent years and both are widely expected to continue their rapid development (for example,
bbs.taobao.com). They function primarily as communication channels between enterprises and
users in the form of improved customer relationship management (CRM), but social networks
also enable the enhancement, at many levels, of the relationships of enterprises with their
customers and those of the business community in general (Thomas 2006).
Dissident Cybercommunities
The Chinese government has been investing heavily in developing an adequate Internet
infrastructure as part of its increasingly successful strategy to overcome the nation’s digital
divide. At the same time, however, it has introduced one of the most efficient surveillance and
control mechanisms in the world (Chase, Mulvenon, and Hachigian 2006; Hughes and Wacker
2003). Although computer experts might be able to override the censorship measures, normal
users are denied access to regime-critical voices by the blocking devices set up on the Internet in
China. Dissident voices involved in the current “big taboos” in China are thus often based
outside of China and Hong Kong, and, while they might form a dissident cybercommunity, it is
very difficult for them to reach users within China. The best-known examples of dissident groups
are probably the Falun Gong, the Chinese Democracy Party, and the Tibetan exile groups. All
these groups employ or have employed two-way communications to build up communities to
coordinate political action and transmit information. The authorities in Beijing regard this
information as politically sensitive or even subversive, which makes it difficult for PRC citizens
to participate (Chase and Mulvenon 2002, 1–43).
Two-way communications via email and BBSs helped tremendously with the
organization and development of the China Democracy Party (CDP), a short-lived party that was
established in 1998 and was declared illegal by the CCP in that same year. Here, however, the
Internet played a contradictory role (Zheng 2008, 147): without the new communication
technologies, the rapid organization and coordination of the CDP within China and beyond
would have been not possible but, on the other hand, the uncoordinated discussion on the
Internet led to the CDP’s apparent radicalization which, in the end, provided the Chinese
authorities with the arguments they needed to crack down on the party.
The Internet played a significant role in coordinating the Falun Gong movement, a
spiritual movement that was built upon elements of traditional Chinese qigong practices, but with
a modern and hierarchical structure. The Chinese authorities launched a crackdown in 1999,
declaring the movement an “evil cult” and issuing orders for its members to be prosecuted. Since
the crackdown, relevant BBSs and chat rooms have been inaccessible or have been subjected to
direct attacks by the Chinese authorities, so that today the Falun Gong community is more
concentrated outside of China (Chase and Mulvenon 2002; Zheng 2008, 17).
Empowerment or Entertainment?
In recent years various forms of cybercommunities have come into existence in the PRC
and greater China that are clearly much more than extensions of existing networks. Some of
these cybercommunities have helped to develop the Internet itself as a medium of
communication, while others possess social characteristics and features that may even challenge
the existing structures of the state. From an optimistic perspective, cybercommunities may
empower marginalized and scattered groups, may lead to transnational networks, and may also
provide a new public sphere. These cybercommunities in China can therefore be seen as
presenting something new and innovative—certainly much more than merely extensions of
already existing networks. As participation in cybercommunities requires only limited levels of
commitment, participants are able to enter and leave without using their real identities.
Cybercommunities, by bundling interest groups together, can thus be seen as contributing to the
fragmentation of society, as jeopardizing real communication and hindering the development of
a Habermasian public sphere.
For the time being, cybercommunities are only able to exert limited influence on
emerging political and societal discourses and on the creation of a public sphere. They are part of
an increasingly postmodern Chinese society with a very personalized use. Their transregional
and transnational character, however, helps to link users in various parts of greater China, and
also leads to new ideas and information being disseminated at an unprecedented speed. This is
particularly true for the marginalized groups that are able to overcome societal and legal
restrictions and to form virtual communities offering opportunities to disseminate news and grant
each other mutual support; in this way, regional disparities can also be overcome. The nationalist
groups on the Internet, however, can often be seen in quite a different light: these tend to ignore
any voices raised in opposition and to form narrow-minded, ethnocentric, and to some extent,
racist groups. Here a true public sphere with the participation of manifold voices would be
especially desirable. In this context, the government blocking of certain websites and the
censorship within BBSs can be regarded as one of the most crucial issues: women and LGBT
members can easily reach their respective groups within greater China, while Chinese
nationalists are cut off from the discussions of Tibetan and Uygur nationalists as well as
Taiwanese independence activists.
Jens DAMM
Chang Jung Christian University, Tainan, Taiwan
Further Reading
Chan, Brenda. (2006). Virtual communities and Chinese national identity. Journal of Chinese Overseas, 2(1), 1–32.
Chase, Michael S. & Mulvenon, James C. (2002). You’ve got dissent! Chinese dissident use of the Internet and
Beijing’s counter-strategies. Santa Monica, CA: RAND.
Chase, Michael S.; Mulvenon, James; & Hachigian, Nina. (2006). Comrade to comrade networks: The social and
political implications of peer-to-peer networks in China. In Jens Damm and Simona Thomas (Eds.), Chinese
cyberspaces: Technological changes and political effects (pp. 64–101). London and New York: Routledge.
China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC). (2010). 25th statistical survey report on Internet development
in China (Jan 2010). Retrieved August 1, 2010, from http://www.cnnic.cn/uploadfiles/pdf/2010/3/15/142705.pdf
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